King Amarantus entered the room. “Sorry I am late, but there has been a development. The small island near the Pillars of Sanguineous where I planned to send you has no long boats as I was told. There would be no way for you to get through the pillars to Lux Amarou. However, I have made arrangements for you to travel there aboard two of our dragon knight ships. They are relatively small vessels, but they will get you there.”
“How long will that take?” Ianthill asked.
“Not long. Two of my dragons will fly each ship to the ocean and place you in the water just before the pillars.”
“Oh, no,” Gondrial said. “I am not flying aboard a ship ever again.”
“Then we will leave you here,” Morgoran said.
“I will be there with you,” Lady Shey said. “There is no need to be frightened.”
Kyrie looked disappointed. “I wish I could go with you, but I am needed elsewhere.”
“If you would all be so kind, this way to the ship,” King Amarantus said.
Gondrial reluctantly walked with Lady Shey, and Dorenn walked behind them.
Chapter 14: The Pillars of Sanguineous
The two dragon knight ships were in dry dock inside a cave entrance to Draegodor. The only way to access it was from the sky. They were not particularly large ships, requiring only a crew of two or three to run them. It was decided that, considering the dangers and the possible confrontation with Toborne, they would all travel to Lux Amarou together. King Amarantus made them split into two groups to board the ships. Dorenn’s ship consisted of the two dragon knight crew members, Lady Shey, Gondrial, Ianthill, Morgoran, Seandara, Rennon and Bren. The second ship was boarded by two crew members, Veric, Sanmir, Trendan, Kimala, Fayne, Vesperin, and Deylia. If the ships should become separated, the two groups would meet at the old capital of Salderwick.
Before departing, Dorenn decided to say a few words. “There is no reason for us all to travel to Lux Amarou. I have to go after the Myradon Codex. It may be the only hope of defeating the Oracle. While I appreciate the help, you all do not need to volunteer.”
“If Tatrice is in the hands of Toborne, and he may be there to confront you, it is my duty to be there as well. I am going,” Bren said. “I mean no disrespect to you, but she has to know I am alive.”
“You will need someone to see through illusions if necessary. Morgoran has mandated it,” Rennon said.
Morgoran stepped in front of Dorenn. “To be honest, I know all of you will volunteer, so we better be off. Make no mistake, we will need each and every one of you. Lux Amarou is a horrible, dangerous place, and I hate to say this, but if Ianthill, Gondrial, Shey, or I fail to protect him or fall, it is up to each and every one of you to rally to his side and protect him. He must get the Myradon Codex at all costs and get out of Salderwick. Using the Lora Daines to travel across the island will summon evil too powerful to defeat, so we must travel to the capital on foot. Once Dorenn has secured the tome, we can use the Lora Daines to escape back to the ships on the coast. Refrain from using any essence or magic while in the interior of the island if at all possible.”
They all boarded the ships, and Amarantus’ dragons took ahold of bow and stern. Gondrial tried to carry a brave face as the ships cleared the cave’s mouth and sailed out into the blue skies, but Dorenn noticed his knees buckled slightly when he saw how far the ground was below.
The dragons picked up speed as soon as they were out in the open. The flight from Draegodor to the ocean would take about five hours.
It was early afternoon when the dragons set the ships down in the ocean outside the Pillars of Sanguineous and headed back for Draegodor. The dragon knight crew took over and steered the ships onward, unfurling the one main sail. The pillars were two giant rock formations reaching to the sky. The red rock at the top of the pillars eroded down the columns over time, giving the pillars the semblance of being covered with blood. As soon as the ships passed the Pillars of Sanguineous, Dorenn felt all the joy in his heart sink into despair. A winter storm rolled in from the north. They would have to fight it before the ships could reach the old port of Draycott.
When the storm hit, the seas rocked the small ships violently. Sanmir controlled the wind of his ship and steered it true to the docks. Dorenn’s ship got blown far off course and ended up heading for jagged rocks on the west side of the island. Ianthill and Morgoran decided to lift the ship with essence and fly it out of danger. They set it down just before reaching land. Morgoran wanted to limit the use of magic on the island. The crew was confident they could sail the ship back around to the docks to meet with the other ships and wait for their return.
The advantage to being blown off course was that Dorenn’s party was much closer to the middle of the island and thus much closer to Salderwick. The first ruin they would reach would be Fornorth.
As soon as Dorenn set foot on Lux Amarou, he felt the surge of the arcane essence emanating up from the land. It was a curious sensation. The land itself appeared dead, but not in the way the Sacred Land was dead. Lux Amarou didn’t become a wasteland. It looked more like it survived a harsh winter. The vegetation was there, just yellow or grey, and the trees were alive but dormant. The feeling of death Lux Amarou exuded was more of a death of its people.
“Nice place,” Gondrial said as they disembarked.
“What is that horrible smell?” Lady Shey said. “Does the entire island smell this bad?”
A cold wind blew, and Rennon wrapped his cloak tighter around himself. “I certainly hope not.” He took a few steps. “Are we going to meet at Salderwick or wait for the others? They should be coming up the main road from Draycott, right?”
“If they made it to the docks there,” Morgoran said. “But regardless, we move on. We all survived. We need to get Dorenn to the Codex and get him out of here.”
“How far away is Salderwick?” Lady Shey asked.
“I have never been here before, but I would say several days walk. The island is of a pretty good size,” Morgoran said. “According to the map I saw at Draegodor, the main road goes straight through from Draycott to Hillsford to Fornorth. It curves slightly and then goes straight through a forest and a couple of other small towns to Salderwick at the center of the island.”
Ianthill stopped at a subsidiary road to the main road. “There was a major battle at Fornorth. We are going to see things that we would not normally see traveling around our own lands. It is important that you do not touch anything. If you find jewels or gold on the ground, leave them where they lay. They are most likely cursed.”
“I can tell one way or the other,” Gondrial said.
“I don’t care,” Ianthill said. “You still should not pick up anything. I am not sure what we will find, but nothing about this place is going to be pleasant.”
“I think it’s time to get moving. Sanmir is intuitive. We will stop for the night a bit early to give him time to catch up with us. They shouldn’t be that far behind us if they made it to the docks,” Morgoran said. “We will all be together by the time we reach Salderwick.”
As he rearranged his pack on his back, Dorenn thought of how grey and depressing this land was. The low-hanging grey clouds made it seem worse. Morgoran led the group from the shore, followed by Shey and Gondrial. Rennon stayed with Dorenn and Bren, and Ianthill guarded the rear. Seandara secured her bow and ran to walk beside Dorenn and Rennon.
With a heavy, worried heart, Dorenn smiled uneasily at her and then followed Morgoran toward Fornorth.
Chapter 15: Lux Amarou
All around the road just outside the ruined city of Fornorth were the white-washed skeletal remains of a long ago battle. No one had set foot near this place in memory. Because of the magic used, the area was slower to decay than normal, and the power and essence Dorenn could feel emanating from the land was almost intoxicating. The vegetation had overgrown some areas and avoided others. The acrid smell of death from the areas without vegetation gave Dorenn a clue as to why. The magic used there was that of death and decay.
“Careful you avoid those barren areas, Dorenn,” Morgoran said.
“I will avoid them for the stench alone,” he said. “Morgoran, I can feel the tremendous power from this land. Why doesn’t Toborne or the Oracle use this essence?”
“It’s too far away to draw from, and there is no known way to contain it for use elsewhere, at least not this much essence. The source of the essence is primal and arcane. It would take hundreds of thousands of essence vessels to transport a fraction of this essence anywhere near our kingdoms. It would also take an army of wielders with the knowledge of how to make such vessels years to make. It just isn’t practical. Waiting for the Sacred Land to reawaken is much easier. Furthermore, Lux Amarou is not worth ruling or for using as a base to try and take over the world. So far, we have just tipped the edge of the island. There are things here that I would not dare disturb if I brought an army of men that could wield twice as well as me. These lands are truly ruined. We must refrain from disturbing it as much as possible.”
“It’s such a shame,” Seandara said. “I can tell it was a beautiful place once, even though it reeks of death and decay now.”
“Why didn’t any of these men get proper burials?” Lady Shey asked, repulsed by the many corpses left to rot.
Morgoran shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, and my guess would be that they all killed each other without leaving enough people to perform burials.”
“I say they didn’t want to return here—the people who survived and escaped, I mean,” Ianthill said.
Dorenn noticed that some of the armor of some of the skeletons looked more modern than others. “Could some of these corpses be from expeditions?”
“My people sent some expeditions here that never returned,” Seandara said.
Gondrial walked up closely to a skeleton that looked different than the rest. It had a golden amulet partially buried in the ground and golden armor encrusted with jewels. The corpse itself was buried partially. “Look at this one. Some sort of nobleman or king.” As he knelt down to examine the amulet, careful not to touch anything, he thought he saw the fingers of the arm not buried in the soil move. A moment later, the head slowly turned to look at him directly from empty sockets. Gondrial backed away, not sure of what he was seeing. The corpse began tugging and writhing, trying to pull itself up from its partial burial. It suddenly made a frustrated, wailing noise.
Lady Shey looked over Gondrial’s shoulder. “Oh, no, what did you do? Did you disturb it?”
“Nothing! I did nothing, I swear! I was just looking at it.” Gondrial noticed the skeleton closest to the one he was looking at also began to move. “Not these undead things again.” He drew his sword. “Do we cast magic on them? What do we do?”
“Get in close,” Morgoran commanded. “I guess you know why they aren’t buried now, Shey.”
Dorenn looked around in horror as all of the skeletons began to stir awake.
“Seandara, shoot for the head,” Morgoran said. “The rest of you, don’t use any essence unless you absolutely have no other choice.”
“Mindwielding?” Rennon asked.
“I don’t know. Use it as sparingly as possible.”
Rennon grinned and held out his hands. A quarter staff of pure energy appeared. He swung it around him with expert precision. It hummed with a pleasing vibration as he did so, and it obeyed his every command, going ridged in his hands.
“Impressive,” Dorenn said as he unsheathed
Dranmalin
.
“A trick I learned from Theosus. You ought to see the weapons he can produce! I could only conjure this staff with any skill.”
“If you two are finished admiring each other, there are two skeletons right behind you,” Gondrial said.
Rennon turned to face the first one. He spun his staff, thrusting it directly into the head of the nearest skeleton. Its head exploded, and its body went limp. He threw his staff at the second one, and it sung through the air, clipping the abomination in the head before returning to Rennon’s hand. He spun it around his back and threw it at another.
Dorenn wanted to watch Rennon fight, but he knew he had to join in. He connected with
Dranmalin
by holding the sword straight up and down near his face with his eyes closed. He could feel the sword in his mind. He got a sense of the arcane power surrounding him for a brief moment, and then the dragon magic flowed between him and
Dranmalin
. He opened his eyes, and they were as dragon eyes, slit in the middle and yellow. He could see as the dragons saw. He had only learned how to connect with his sword when he enchanted it according to the instructions of the essence shard he absorbed in the Hall of Ancients. This was his first time to fight with it as one. To his eyes, the skeletons glowed in a purple, smoldering light. He was seeing the evil emanating off of them. He leaped into action.
Dranmalin
almost seemed to pull him along as it hacked and slashed each skeleton with deadly accuracy. He and
Dranmalin
were one entity, bent on the destruction of all evil.
He stopped when he heard Gondrial cry out. The skeleton in kingly armor had escaped the ground and had him pinned against a decaying building. Dorenn instinctively threw
Dranmalin
forward, but he soon realized the sword never left his hand. Instead, a plume of fire emanated from the sword’s blade, swirling in a deadly arch and burning the skeleton in a white and yellow light. Being nothing but a skeleton, it still managed to scream somehow, and then it fell in a heap of ashes.